How to Increase Your Twitter Following 438% in 30 Days

Written on February 28, 2008 – 6:26 pm | by Brian Wallace |

(yes, that’s supposed to be a Twitter army )

Why Twitter is Important

(click image for full size)

To many Internet Marketers,Twitter has become important. Some people may not yet understand, but this may just be part of their journey through the social media learning curve. As with any social media application, site influencers got to where they were by putting in the time to understand the community. Twitter is no exception.

Let’s take a look at 7 Steps that Make Twitter Work:

Step #1. Twitter is more than personal updates. Sure, some people like to put in cat updates or say what they are eating for lunch, but Twitter is much more than that. Blogs used to have much the same stigma pinned on them, but one day the world woke up and understood the power of simple publishing + citizen journalism. Microblogging has reduced the time to market of content down to minutes and seconds, a huge improvement over blogs which brought it down to hours from previous forms of communication.

Step #2. Now that you have your head on straight, socialize. Chances are, if you participate in the social media community, people you know are already on Twitter. While Twitter doesn’t have the best way in the world to find people, sometimes the best way is to just see who your friend is following.

Step #3. Don’t just sit there, say something. Join the conversation. Without being too noisy, get in there. Nobody is going to ask you to the dance if you are just sitting around. See what people are talking about, jump in with some “@’s” (replies to a user) and perhaps some direct messages too.

Step #4. Now that you’ve said something, quiet down. Like any social media site, know the community and follow its norms.

Step #5. Know the difference between a push vs a pull mechanism. When you post a link to your latest blog post to Twitter, you are doing a push. An action meant to grab the reader. They can ignore it, but people that like what you bring to the table will check you out. Instantly.
RSS on the other hand is a pull. Users will check RSS at their own pace and it will take more time to get buzz around your content.

Step #6. Fine tune, and read what’s out there. Here’s the part where you get to see where others have broken ground already, leaving valuable information for you along the way.
My suggested reads:
-Jeremiah Owyang on how he uses Twitter
-Shana’s awesome post about 26 reasons why I love Twitter
-DoshDosh put together a fine list of 17 ways to use Twitter.

Step #7. Put it all together and measure your results. As the title of the post mentioned, I promised a 438% growth in followers in a 30 day period. Here was my progression:

After looking through this list a few times, I thought that both Twitter addicts and those that may not even use Twitter at all might be left with a few questions. Here’s my attempt to answer a few:

Q: 438% growth doesn’t just magically happen. How did you do it?

A: Well, I’ll tell you:

1 – Followed people I knew
2 – Adjusted my level of noise
3 – Thanked people for following me
4 -Kept the conversation going with those that replied quickly
5 – Instigated a few fights
6 – Chatted with better known people
7 – Unfollowed those that were bothersome / too noisy
8 – Crosslinked on my blog and other social media profiles
9 – Did a bit of brand management / data mining, keeping a keen eye on Tweeterboard stats, Terraminds info, and Tweetstats graphs
10 – Retweeted things that I felt were important that my followers might have missed from my Twitter friends

Q: Ok, so you got some new Twitter followers. If I post a link, maybe I get 5-10 visits to my blog. Why should I care?

A: The reason that you should care isn’t the direct traffic, but rather the indirect influence. If you Tweet a link to a new blog post, people will rush to submit it to social sites. This is changing the “pull” dynamic inherent in RSS (which may become passive for folks that are too busy to keep up on RSS) to a “push” dynamic through Twitter – but to people already interested in you. What’s more is that your followers may see your Tweets as a call to action, and begin to submit / vote for post you may have.

44 Responses to “How to Increase Your Twitter Following 438% in 30 Days”

So through Collective-thoughts I have joined mixx and found it a great social media site. I am a big stumbler. But twitter, I just haven’t gotten into. I haven’t put in a lot of time for twitter. Maybe I haven’t found the real value…

I am a Newbit to Twitter – wanted to say thanks to you for “following” me back and for visiting my Skype Networking Room! I think this is a great tool for networking and I am eager to learn more about it. Thanks so much for writing this article – every little bit clarifies more and more for me!

I really want to use this as a marketing tool so I am hopeful that my time will be well spent in learning to use Twitter and it’s associated pieces.

I love Twitter.. but it hasn’t always been easy to love it. When I first joined, I was one of those that just sat back and observed the conversation… I quickly realized that once you actually start participating and communicating with others… your following will start to grow.

I love the power of Twitter in getting my content out there. As an avid blogger and home business entrepreneur, it allows me to schedule people for presentations, get the word out, make fun of people, connect, get useful tips etc…two thumbs up on Twitter!

You are correct, those links are broken in #9. Since this post was written back in February, both Tweeterboard and Terraminds have evaporated. Quite a shame, since both were valuable services. These days, I’d recommend Twitter Search, which can be found at search.twitter.com – this was formerly a company by the name of Summize.

When I first joined Twitter, I mostly just posted personal updates. I thought it was pretty stupid, but I kept updating it nonetheless. I have always been an avid reader so I always have random bits of information that I want to share with my friends. I started posting articles that I found interesting and people in turn started to follow me. I don’t have that many followers yet, but I am surprised that there are that many people out there that actually find me interested.

By the way, I think that Twitter on its own is kind of boring. I got absolutely hooked once I downloaded Tweetdeck. It helps if you have two or more computer screens as then you can have it open the whole time.

FINALLY! A post that talks about being RELEVANT and not just making noise. Excellent read. Keep in mind, just because you have audience doesn’t mean you have voice. Look at people like Britney Spears that has 868,000 followers but nobody gives a damn what she is saying. compare that to @zaibatsu that has 62,000 followers and is the 5th most influential person on twitter (per twitalyzer), or @KevinRose that has 465,000 (half of britney) and is only 2 behind @zaibatsu.

It is not necessary that all your Twitter followers actually follow your updates regularly..If you have thousands of followers added to your profile,but none follow your updates then what is the advantage of making a huge list of followers..I have more than 1000 followers but hardly get any traffic from them…My Google analytics data shows tumblr(A twitter clone) provides me good traffic than twitter.

Been using Twitter for a number of months now and loving it. Find it’s a great way to gain instant feedback on subjects and even provided traffic information in real time from users. Did not think I would use as much as first thought! Oh and of course you can follow me http://www.Twitter.com/jayhill2000

I’m really just now getting the hang of Twitter. I know, very late in the game! I don’t see a need to mindlessly follow anybody and everybody but maybe I’m wrong. Glad you wrote this post. Bookmarking the page!

No, the tips r not so good. The best way to get more followers is to follow people and follow back the new followers. Don’t always beg for more followers because many people will unfollow u for this. Help other to get some more followers by promoting. I was at 2,000 followers when I completed the first 2 months in Twitter. After this I started following the rules I wrote above & I got a awesome result. I got 7600+ followers in the next 19 days. Belive me if u follow this rules u will get Thousands of followers in 3-4 days. See my account in Twitter @I_m_immortal

Another way you can increase Twitter followers is joining Twitter directories, they are great place to find like minded users and great place to showcase your profile as well. When it comes to Twitter directories usage of tags are important. Also you can use viral scripts where you give away something for a tweet and have the a check box to follow your by default. If you have something great to giveaway then this could go viral and increase your followers quickly. This lens have more information about those methods, http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-increase-your-twitter-followers . These method will get you followers, but you have to engage them if you want to keep them.

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